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Indiana Bakers Square Off Over Doughnut Trademarks

Richard Comer started making square donuts nearly 50
years ago. Now, his company has taken on a fellow Indiana baker for allegedly honing in on
what it considers a trademarked treat.

Comer, founded Square
Donuts Inc. of Terre Haute, Ind., in 1967. The company sent a cease-and-desist
letter to Family Express Corp., which started selling square-shaped doughnuts
under the name “Square Donuts” in 2005.

Comer’s Square Donuts, which expanded over five decades to
nine locations in Indiana, clearly considers itself the innovator of the
four-sided doughnut; its website even links to a newspaper article that
declares, “Donuts were round—until Richard Comer Sr. made them square.”

In 1975, Gus Olympidis opened the Time Low convenience store
in Valparaiso, Ind. That company now operates a chain of 60-some convenience
stores and gas stations under the Family Express name.

Soon after Family Express started selling its square donuts,
it got the cease-and-desist letter from Square Donuts Inc., which claimed
trademark rights in the term “Square Donuts.” So began the
bakers’ legal tug-of-war over who gets to officially call their donuts square.

In 2012, Comer’s Square Donuts Inc. registered “Square Donuts
Inc.” as a trademark with Office of the Secretary of State of Indiana and then got
federal trademark registrations for “Square Donuts” for retail bakery shops as
of March 2013 (Registration No. 4341136) and café services (No. 4341135).

Not to be left on the cooling rack, Family Express filed a registration
application with the Patent and Trademark Office for “Square Donuts” for retail
convenience stores in October 2015 (Serial No. 86779997). However, the PTO
rejected the application after finding that it created a likelihood of
confusion with the existing registrations.

This prompted Family Express to finally go to court. It
filed a complaint
March 23 in federal court, asking for a declaration that its use of the name
“Square Donuts” is descriptive of its goods and doesn’t infringe any
enforceable trademark right held by Square Donuts Inc. It’s also seeking
cancellation of Square Donuts Inc.’s federal trademark registrations on the grounds
that “square donuts” is a generic term and not distinctive, which is required
for a trademark.

Family Express reached out to Square Donuts Inc. before
going to court to see if the parties could reach an agreement, according to the
complaint. It remains to be seen whether the court will rule on any of the
trademark issues in the case. Or whether any of Indiana’s circular doughnut
vendors will take advantage of the legal battle to
try and lure customers away from their square competitors.

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